Days before he officially accepted a scholarship to play football at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Pottsville High School senior Jeremy Ward sat in his living room with his parents, Renee and Mike, and former Razorbacks head football coach Bobby Petrino.

Mike said it was the first opportunity he had to ask Petrino why he offered his offensive lineman son a scholarship. Petrino answered Mike’s question by saying, “We look at three things. The very first one is character.”

That was January, and the Razorback Nation has turned upside down the last couple of weeks — primarily due to Petrino’s character.

Jeremy Ward would not watch Tuesday’s press conference where UA Athletic Director Jeff Long announced he completed his internal investigation of Petrino’s April 1 motorcycle accident and revelation of a previous inappropriate relationship with a 25-year-old university employee.

As Ward sat on the front porch with his girlfriend, Renee and Mike actually applauded Long when he painfully announced Petrino was terminated with cause after four years and a 34-17 overall coaching record.

“He said he didn’t really want to watch it,” Mike Ward said Thursday. “It really touched us — what he [Jeff Long] had to say and what he stood for — because when he started to talk about addressing the players, that’s when he really broke down [crying]. You could tell this is absolutely tearing him apart. He understands what this is doing to the kids.”

Ward said he and his son talked about Petrino’s firing after the press conference.

“He had asked before if this would happen, what would happen to [recruiting coordinator and running backs] coach [Tim] Horton and [offensive line] coach [Chris] Klenakis,” Mike explained. “I asked him what he thought, and he said, ‘Dad, I’m a Hog, and that’s about all there is to it.’ He’s going to get his education at the University of Arkansas more than he’s going for [coach] Petrino, as exciting as it was having the man come to our house.

“When I sat back and thought about it, the first thing that came to my mind was why? Here’s a man who has obtained as an indiviual in this state, everything — not only with the money and the fame and all that stuff, he’s built a program with two legitimate Heisman trophy candidates [Ryan Mallet and Tyler Wilson], national prominence, a favorable schedule, new facilities, a top-5 program. He was getting everything he wanted, but why? It’s amazing one little selfish act with somebody in that position can reach so many people — thousands when you think about it.”

Jeremy Ward told his father the next day, “So many people are going to ask me the same questions all day long,” and Mike said he and his wife would have reacted differently if the revelations and firing would have affected Jeremy differently.

“I appreciated him saying that about our son, that’s huge and it means an awful lot to us as parents,” Mike said. “This was before national signing day, and when you put the dates together, you know this was going on [between Petrino and Jessica Dorrell]. I’m disappointed, but I think Jeremy has a pretty good perspective. It would be a lot harder to handle if he wasn’t taking it so well. He is very emphatic that this changes nothing, other than the fact that he will have a new head coach. Throughout all off this, he hasn’t wavered. I told him he might be getting contacts [from other colleges], and he said it doesn’t matter.”